Alice Munro - Writing Her Lives

for a progress report. Her stepmother, Mary Etta Laidlaw, was quite ill and had been asking her about it.Munro hoped “to give her some news, even if she may not get to see it.” Gibson replied that he would work to get the book out that fall, promising a contract for it soon. He then continued: “I have been deliberately staying out of your way for some time, since I don’t want to pester you with repeated offers of a contract. In the meantime, of course, I’ve been keeping an approving eye on your work: in ‘The New Yorker’, on ‘The Immigrants’ [on CBC-TV ], and most recently in connection with the Australian prize.” Congratulating her, he then wondered if she is “now close to having a book-length collection and therefore to drawing up a contract with us. I can think of no other author I would rather have on Macmillan’s list.” Gibson also sent her a copy of a book they had just published called
Remembering the Farm
because it contained a story that “instantly struck me as an Alice Munro story in miniature.” Though he did not say so, that book also contains photographs by Peter D’Angelo.
    Gibson’s wooing strategy was not without critique within Macmillan. A few days after Gibson wrote this letter to Munro, Robert J. Stuart, vice-president of trade books, wrote him an internal memo critical of the decision to publish
The McGregors
, one he himself had acquiesced to. His memo is within a particular context that Stuart is quite explicit about: “I know how badly you want Alice Munro on the Macmillan list, as do all of us in the division.” He allows that the publication of the book might “make some difference to Alice although, in retrospect, we are going about getting her in the wrong way. We should attract her to this house by our ability to edit
her
work, and sell and promote her books, not that of her father.” Stuart is disgruntled over the time Gibson would need to edit the Laidlaw book, its dim prospect for sales, and what he saw as a breakdown in Macmillan’s internal procedures for having manuscripts evaluated by persons other than the sponsoring editor. 29
    Whatever Stuart’s misgivings, Gibson’s approach worked. When she replied to his letter about placing
The McGregors
on the Macmillan fall list, Munro told him that she “had a bunch of stories on hand now, though I would still like a couple more for a collection.” She reiterated that McGraw-Hill Ryerson wanted to hold her to the next-manuscriptclause in her contract for
Something
, but added, “I don’t think they should publish me and my agent knows this. I have told her that I would like Macmillan for my Canadian publisher, and that I have talked to you informally about this.” For her part, Barber sent Gibson Munro’s manuscript, entitled
The Beggar Maid
, on March 8. It contained a section of five “Rose” stories – “Royal Beatings,” “Privilege,” “Half a Grapefruit,” “Wild Swans,” and “Spelling.” “Characters,” the new title of “Pleistocene,” was there too, but Barber indicated that it might be dropped. This section was followed by “Accident” and “Simon’s Luck” (each of these titles was struck out, Barber promising a revision of the latter “which pulls the three parts together with a new ending”); then “Chaddeleys and Flemings,” “The Moons of Jupiter,” “Mischief,” “Providence,” and “The Beggar Maid.” The last three were then about three different characters rather than a single person. In keeping with Stuart’s preferred practice, the manuscript was read at Macmillan by Charlotte Weiss, who agreed with Gibson that it was excellent. By April 10 Gibson was formally authorized to make an offer for the book. He did, and it was accepted. Munro received a $25,000 advance against royalties on Canadian sales, with royalties at 10 per cent for the first 5,000 copies, 12.5 per cent up to 10,000, and 15 per cent after that. There was a straight 10 per cent on the Macmillan-New American Library paperback that would follow the hardcover edition. Macmillan’s share of the advance was $15,000, NAL ’s $10,000.
    By the end of April Gibson wrote Munro a three-page “Welcome to Macmillan” letter. “I know that you will be happy here, and promise that any disappointments that may be in the future will not be for a lack of care.” Responding to the manuscript as a whole, he called it “marvelous,” and predicted that “its publication will be without